Mikaella McInerney
For a sustainable future, we must evolve beyond factory farms. Here are some ways this could happen.
Factory farming is a destructive, cruel process that has done terrible damage to both animals and people—as well as the planet upon which we all live.
But the end of its reign of terror is within sight, if we move to embrace the innovative new technologies that offer ways to feed us all—without the terrible cost of factory farming.
1. In-ovo sexing
One of the meat industry’s cruelest and most widespread practices is ‘chick culling’: the process by which the egg industry kills up to 350 million male chicks in the US, and as many as seven billion male chicks worldwide. The reason? Male chicks can’t lay eggs, and so the factory farming industry labels them ‘surplus animals’, too expensive to bother keeping alive.
But in-ovo sexing offers a new way to avoid the massive waste and cruelty of these billions of deaths. It offers the ability for egg producers to determine the sex of a chicken’s egg while the egg is still developing, and choose to hatch only the female chicks. While in-ovo sexing doesn’t solve all the cruelties of the egg industry, it is a significant step in the right direction.
2. Vertical farming
There have never been so many humans on the planet as there are today—and feeding all of us is a growing problem. But the agricultural processes behind factory farming are deeply destructive, as well as unsustainable. Factory farming is one of the driving causes behind all our greatest environmental issues, from deforestation to pollution to climate crisis and more. It can’t continue: in the past 40 years, Earth has already lost a third of its arable land.
Vertical farming provides an alternative. In buildings like skyscrapers, warehouses or shipping containers, vertical farms move up rather than out, using vertically stacked layers to produce much more food on the same amount (or less) of land. Along the way, it utilizes less water and more space, eliminates environmental impacts, and offers increased production all year round.
To be clear, these vertical farms produce plants and plants alone, and must be differentiated from the horror of layer farms for chickens. Plant-based vertical farms have the power to act against the climate crisis and protect our planet for everyone who lives on it, human and animal. And who knows: they might even encourage us to eat more vegetables along the way.
3. Kipster and sustainable farming
Farming is one of the world’s oldest professions. For millennia, we managed to farm without creating widespread animal cruelty on an industrial scale or destroying our planet. Farming doesn’t have to mean the horror and abuse of factory farming.
Sustainable and ethical farming ventures like Kipster offer a way back to our roots. Kipster farms chickens and their eggs with careful attention to animal welfare and environmental protection. They work to preserve the natural behaviors and lives of the chickens on their farm, have a neutral greenhouse gas footprint, and upcycle food to avoid waste. In doing so, they are creating a blueprint for future farmers.
4. Artificial intelligence
AI is everywhere—is it a surprise that it’s in our food systems too? AI has the potential to help us create safer, kinder, and more sustainable farms through a variety of means. It can impact animal welfare: European scientists have developed an algorithm decoding pig noises to help farmers better detect and respond to distress; a platform called ClearFarm collects and analyzes welfare and environmental impact information from cows and pigs, making it easier for farmers and consumers to monitor animals’ nutrition, housing, health, behavioral interactions, and mental state. Research also indicates that AI-powered solutions will help farmers produce more with lesser resources and improve crop quality.
Crucially, these AI-powered tools, and indeed all these incredible innovations, must be met with human empathy and response. It’s all very well for a robot to tell us a pig is distressed, but arguably, we should have been able to tell that just by hearing the pig’s own cries. AI and its technological siblings will not be able to change anything about the state of factory farming without firm commitment and advocacy from human partners.
But you don’t need to be a scientist building brave new worlds to make real change in our world. Speak up for animals and show your own power in the fight against factory farming by joining us: our volunteer movement is waiting for you!
